


Gossamer Thread

by IamShadow21



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Breakfast, Broken Bones, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dubious Consentacles, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Food, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Hurt Clint Barton, M/M, Magic, Minor Injuries, Mostly Gen, Movie Night, No Tentacle Sex, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Platonic Cuddling, Team, Team Bonding, Tentacles, Trope Subversion/Inversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:00:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1195965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IamShadow21/pseuds/IamShadow21
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A magical practical joke gives the Avengers some unwanted appendages. Over the course of the two weeks that follow, they go AWOL, lose personal boundaries, watch a lot of films, start a summer camp, and eat a very satisfying breakfast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gossamer Thread

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a back-up story for the 'dubious consentacles' challenge on marvelthrowdown. The story I used for that challenge was [a creature made of salt and blood](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1183481). This isn't in the same universe as that one, but think of it as a bit of a bonus fic that I wrote because it was my original story idea, and it wanted to be written, even though it wasn't necessary for the challenge.

Zero

“Well, this is a shit storm,” Nick Fury says with disgust, looking at the crowded tent filled with superheroes, SHIELD personnel and emergency services. “What's the number?”

“Forty-seven confirmed exposed and manifested. All quarantined. No reports of cases outside the containment lines,” Simmons chirps happily.

“It's not contagious?”

“It's not a pathogen, per se-”

Fury glares Simmons down until she says, “No, sir. Not contagious.”

“And it'll wear off?”

“Thor said it's, er, magic, that's generally meant as a bit of a joke,” Fitz attempts.

Fury turns his glare in the direction of Thor, who does seem highly amused by the whole situation. 

“As far as we can tell from the device at ground zero, there's nothing that should produce permanent effects,” Fitz continues.

“Right. _Listen up, people!_ ” Fury shouts, and the rumble of conversation dies down. “The whole damn lot of you are benched!”

A groan swells up from the group.

“SHIELD personnel! You're restricted to base. ERTs! Accommodation will be provided for the duration. You'll be allowed phone calls to friends and family, arrangements can be made for dependants, but if a single one of you sells your story to the damn press, you won't like what happens. Avengers! You're remanded to Stark's glorified clubhouse, and unless you hear different from me, for anything short of another invasion, you're to stay there.”

“I'm calling dibs on Agent Coulson,” Hawkeye pipes up.

Fury stares him down for a good five seconds before saying, “Granted. But only because someone in that building should be a goddamn grown-up. Now sort yourselves into your divisions, get on the transport buses, and the rest of you, get this quarantine tent packed up and put away. You're making New York look untidy.”

*

Three

“Bored,” Clint says.

Phil feels a tickle of sensation up the back of his neck.

“Shit, sorry.”

“Don't worry about it,” Phil says, for what feels like the hundredth time.

“Every time I think I've got control of the bastard, I get distracted and it... wanders,” Clint says with some chagrin.

“If it really bothered me, I'd sit somewhere else,” Phil says. “I'm in exactly the same predicament as you. And after Alsace, ephemeral tentacles that seem to like crossing personal boundaries aren't really that bad, are they?”

“Depends on how high your boundaries are to begin with, I guess,” Clint muses.

“There's a reason that no one's seen the captain or Banner in two days, and I think we can all guess why Tony recalled Pepper from that energy conference in Berlin and vanished into the penthouse.”

“Well, they're a bit private. Not just with the touching,” he clarifies. “They're like a kind of... Asgardian mood ring, or something. I like yours,” he adds.

Phil glances away from his tablet in time to see one of his own tentacles wrap around Clint's forearm like a vine. Clint absently pets it with his other hand. Against Clint's tanned skin, the sanguine twists look shocking.

“They're very you,” Clint smiles.

Phil's tentacles are half a dozen trailing streaks of crimson originating at equal spacing down his spine from the base of his neck to his waist. They're a little like blood and a little like smoke, and apart from lightly molesting anyone who comes within three feet of him, Phil has yet to see them do anything but aimlessly twist and curl around objects and each other. Like with all of them, the tentacles pass without effort through things like furniture and people and clothing, but then will suddenly become partially corporeal without any warning and grasp something.

“And yours?”

“You gotta admit, having a feather-tail is pretty awesome,” Clint says.

“Not a tentacle?”

“It's growing out of my butt, and it's feathery around the edges. It's a feather-tail,” Clint says firmly.

Apart from a line of gently wafting fringing along the outside edges of his forearms, the tail is Clint's only addition. Phil has to admit it's tail-like, and the edges of it look neat and soft and beautifully feathered, like the antennae of a moth.

“I think it's very you, too,” Phil says shyly, and Clint's smile makes a glow of warmth blossom in Phil's chest.

*

Five

When the loneliness threatens to eat Steve alive, and he's watched all the modern television he can stand, he goes up to the communal floor and tells himself he's not slinking guiltily back to the team he abandoned.

He finds Natasha, Clint and Tony in what looks suspiciously like a puppy pile on an enormous floor cushion, watching a film so old it's even in black and white.

“Hey, Cap,” Tony says lazily. He looks tired and happy in a way that screams _fucked out_ , and even if he didn't, the purple bloom of a hickey high up on his neck pretty much confirms it. He's also pouting and socialising with the team, which means Pepper likely left when JARVIS told Steve she was planning to. “We got tired of dodging each other, so we thought we'd just go with it.”

“What he actually did was burst in and say, “Embrace me!” and jump at Clint hoping he'd catch him,” Natasha drawls. One of her ribbon-like tentacles tweaks Tony on the nose, and he bats at it, his hand passing right through the green band.

“I did,” Clint clarifies. “Because I'm not an asshole.”

“Well, I wasn't gong to jump at you,” Tony says to Natasha. “You'd let me fall, and then kill me in a horrible way.”

“I wouldn't kill you,” Natasha says in a pleasant and yet menacing tone.

“An-y-way,” Tony enunciates. “Spangles. You look hug-deprived. You're definitely me-deprived. I thought you'd gone into hibernation.”

“Like you noticed,” Clint teases, poking Tony in the ribs with a finger. 

Tony squirms away and half-sits up to evade him. Tony's manifestation is a long fringe of navy-blue from shoulder to shoulder across his upper back. It ripples like it's being teased by invisible currents or breezes, and occasionally lengthens and flares out like a cape behind him. “Of course, I noticed. And when I don't notice things, JARVIS or Pepper notice and tell me about it, which is practically the same thing.”

“It really isn't,” Steve says, but he's smiling.

“We're watching through Hitchcock,” Natasha explains. “Stark's got almost everything he ever made.”

“We've got Cheetos,” Clint says, gesturing at the enormous bowl perched on his belly.

“C'mon, if it's us, we'll break you in slowly. It's us, or, next time Thor sees you, he tackles you, and you freak out from the suddenness of it all,” Tony cajoles.

“Thor's tackling people?” Steve asks with a frown.

“Thor's tackling _everyone_ ,” Natasha confirms.

“In his defence, it's more like a bear hug,” Clint says. “With bonus groping.”

“Doesn't everything come with bonus groping right now?” Steve asks.

“Ha!” says Tony.

“Point,” concedes Clint.

“So why fight it?” Tony asks.

Natasha holds out a hand, imperiously, and Steve takes it, lets her guide him down to lie with his head cushioned on her thigh. A green ribbon trails across the curve of his neck, down what's visible of the charcoal grey brush-like line down his spine, and he shivers. 

There's a short burst of light and Steve stiffens, apologises.

“Are you shitting me?” Tony says, the awe in his voice apparent.

Steve feels Tony's fingers stroke down the path Natasha's ribbon had taken, and even though he's expecting the contact this time, there's still a gentle glow.

“I thought maybe you were the drab bird of the bunch, but _fucking bioluminescence_ ,” Tony hisses.

“Admit it, you're just pissed, and think that if one of us was going to get natural fireworks, it should have been you,” Clint says.

“That's patently untrue,” Tony says, sulkily.

*

Seven

“If you grab me, it's going to go badly for you. And, well, the elevator,” Bruce says tensely, when Thor bounds through the doors like an over-eager Labrador bouncing after a ball.

Actually, Bruce ponders, with his glimmering collar of gently dancing tentacles, he looks more like a lion chasing a butterfly.

“Very well, Friend Bruce,” Thor says, clapping Bruce on the shoulder with a heavy hand. “Know you the reason for this meeting?”

“No. I've been kinda... busy,” Bruce says, because 'hiding' never sounds good, even though hiding is second nature to him by now. He'd been transported back to the Tower separately from the others, after he de-Hulked. He'd avoided them all successfully, until this moment.

“A foe to fight would surely have demanded more urgency, and many more trumpets,” Thor frowns.

Bruce can't recall ever seeing a trumpet anywhere near the Tower, or any in the Battle of New York. “You mean sirens?”

“Indeed.”

“Right, no, I haven't heard any more of those than normal, either,” Bruce says, carding a hand through his hair nervously. One of his tentacles curls around his index finger; he shakes it free.

“Ah, you're here, _finally_ ,” Tony groans, like Bruce had dawdled at every floor on the way rather than coming immediately.

“Holy shit,” Clint says, and Bruce self-consciously raises a hand to his head. 

Phil elbows Clint sharply. 

“But sir, his hair is so big, it's full of secrets,” Clint says.

“Glad to be an amusement, I'm here all week,” Bruce says drily.

“No, you're not,” Tony pipes up. “That's why you're here. I'm bored. The Tower's got old and Legolas here already got caught trying to sneak out three times.”

“Actually, once, I was coming back,” Clint says and gets cuffed gently upside the head by Phil.

“I've got a mansion locally, it's got grounds and a pool and fantastic security,” Tony continues. “Plus, there's a library that at least one university a year tries to bully me into bequeathing to them when I die, which might appeal to any of you who are so antique you still read dead tree format.”

Everyone except Thor raises a hand.

“As a futurist, I'm ashamed to even know you,” Tony says to the room at large.

“What is this Dead Tree? Are we questing?” Thor asks.

“Never mind, Fabio, I'll explain later. Anyway, go pack your swimming trunks, or don't, if you swing that way. So long as you don't actually fuck in my pool, I don't care. We leave in twenty minutes.”

Clint bounds from the sofa for the elevator, presumably to grab his bow, Phil following close behind with a long-suffering smile on his face. Everybody else moves to leave at a more leisurely pace, Natasha lingering by Bruce last of all.

“They're really quite adorable, you know,” she says with a quirk of a smile.

“You're not afraid of turning to stone?” Bruce says.

To his surprise, Natasha reaches up and threads her hand into his curls. Without even meaning to, he leans into it, and his eyes sink half-closed as the tentacles in his hair wrap around her fingers and explore up her wrist.

“I think I'm pretty safe in that regard,” she says, gently extricating herself and gliding past him to the elevator.

Bruce lets out an unsteady breath, and decides to take the stairs.

*

Nine

“You're a dumbass,” Natasha says fondly, as she leads a limping Clint into the house through the library's enormous French doors.

“That's a lot of blood for a peaceful walk around the grounds,” Bruce says from the wingback chair he's barely moved from since they arrived. “Were there Triffids?”

Natasha snorts. “Only if you count a tree that just stood there while he climbed it and fell out of it as a Triffid.”

“Hey, my bow is fine,” Clint says, holding up the item in question.

“Yeah, but that wrist looks broken,” Bruce says, uncurling himself from his comfortable seat and wandering over to look at the arm Clint's keeping close to his stomach.

“Sprained?” Clint says hopefully.

“Broken,” Bruce says, palpitating it gently. “Only one of the bones, and it's a clean break, but still.”

“Aw, tree, no,” Clint whines.

“It think it was the ground that did most of the damage,” Natasha says wryly.

“And that gash on your forehead needs stitches. I'll see what Tony's got in the emergency kit.”

Bruce wanders off to find what ends up being quite a comprehensive medical box. The antiseptic cream is a couple of months out of date, but he's done more with less in impoverished parts of world. There's even a splint that should mean Clint doesn't have to go to the hospital.

He looks up from his investigation of the supplies to see Phil with his brow furrowed.

“Have we got a situation?” Phil asks, all business.

“Only if your specialist falling out of a tree without any outside help counts as a situation,” Bruce says. “He's a bit worse for wear.”

Phil sighs. “He's a menace, is what he is,” he grumbles, and helps Bruce assemble the necessary items.

“You want to explain to me why you thought putting yourself even more out of action than you already were was a good idea?” Phil bites out while Bruce swabs and stitches and bandages Clint back together again.

Clint mutters something that sounds like, “feather-tail”.

“What?”

“Thought I'd see if I could use the feather-tail to hold me up,” Clint admits.

“You mean, these things?” Phil says, waving a hand through his own smoky red trails a few times, before one of them catches and holds his hand for just a moment. “These things that aren't any more than a light show, ninety percent of the time?”

Clint shrugs. “It held my weight for a second,” he says.

Phil collapses into a chair and actually buries his face in his hands. 

“Well, you've joined the very special club of people who've done stupid things to themselves in the name of science,” Bruce says with a crooked smile.

“Hey, you hear that? I'm a scientist,” Clint says with a grin, before yelping when Bruce sets his wrist.

“You're a natural disaster,” Phil says from behind his hands.

*

Eleven

Steve frowns a lot the day after Clint gets injured, and ends up in a corner with Phil, taking quietly about _structure_.

The next morning, at breakfast, Tony notices a large colourful cardboard chart on the wall.

“What the fuck is this?” he sputters.

“Activity schedule,” Phil says, smothering toast in honey.

“Unlike you loafers, I still have a job. I'm a genius, I make stuff, it's what I _do_ ,” Tony bristles. “This is my house, not some hellish summer camp where I'm required to participate.”

“You didn't like summer camp?” Phil asks.

“I _loved_ summer camp. Summer camp hated me. I made sure of it,” Tony says with pride.

Clint bounces into the kitchen and steals a slice of Phil's toast right off his plate, to Tony's mild astonishment.

“He makes extra,” Clint explains, unasked, before checking the schedule. “Oooh! Thor and Steve sparring on the croquet lawn in fifteen minutes! I'm making popcorn.”

Phil just bites into his toast and watches Tony, his mild expression definitely stepping over the line into smugness. His tentacles swirl around and frame him perfectly, giving him a bloody halo.

Tony throws up his hands. “Oh, _fine_. But the moment I'm bored, I'm leaving, and I'm not doing any orienteering. GPS was invented for a reason.”

Tony stomps out towards the croquet lawn, just hoping his tentacle fringe is flapping impressively behind him.

*

Thirteen

“Shall miss my majestic mane,” Thor states with an air of genuine regret.

“It _is_ very shiny,” Bruce says from where he's curled into the chair that's undeniably his, now.

“It looks like you killed and skinned an incredibly large and golden axolotl,” Tony says.

“Are these fearsome and mighty beasts?” Thor asks.

Tony grimaces somewhat comically, tilts his hand back and forth.

“They've got lovely tenacley manes,” Bruce placates. “I think he looks like a disco Thorin Oakenshield.”

Thor immediately perks up at the name, since the first half is practically his own, and the second implies a warrior. Steve perks up because he obviously read The Hobbit before going into the ice.

“We're going to end up watching the films, aren't we,” Tony sighs. “Fore-warning for the uninitiated, the third film isn't out yet, so it's only part of the story.”

“There's Lord of the Rings, though, that's complete,” Clint says. “Ooh, drinking game, to make the bow-work less painful.”

“Like you care about style,” Natasha drawls.

“I hit what I aim at, that's all that matters,” Clint says, his frown turning slightly mutinous. His feather-tail slashes behind him. He's been fractious and snappy since breaking his arm. Without the discipline of range or target practice to distract him from their enforced downtime, he's chafing at the boundaries harder than most. 

Phil rests a hand on Clint's shoulder and he settles a little, but he's still scowling.

“If we're doing this, we're doing it right,” Tony says. “We're going to watch it in the home theatre, and we're downloading a drinking game from the internet. Oh, and super soldiers and Asgardians are only competing against each other, since the rest of us mortals don't want to die.”

Bruce raises a hand. “Not that I've made a habit of getting wasted since the Hulk, but I'm pretty sure I need to be classed with them.”

“Fine.”

“I need a handicap,” says Natasha. “My healing factor gives me an unfair advantage.”

“Oh, fine, go play with the big boys. I guess that leaves me with you two,” Tony says, eyeing Clint and Phil. “I don't know whether to feel ridiculously confident or worried about my liver. Interesting. I love a wild card.”

“I won't tell if you won't,” Phil says to Clint, smiling enigmatically at Tony.

“This is a terrible idea,” Clint says. “Let's do it.”

*

Fourteen

“Hey, look at you,” Clint says to Natasha. “No more fancy gymnastics ribbons.”

“Look at you. No more feather-tail,” Natasha counters.

Clint sighs. “I'll miss it, but it wasn't as useful as I hoped.” He waggles his splinted arm.

“Everyone else still out?”

“Phil sorta pawed at me when I walked past, but then he snored, so, yeah,” Clint says with a smile.

Tony's home theatre with fully reclining armchairs and incredibly well stocked wet bar had been a roaring success. But the time they were halfway through The Two Towers, everyone had forgotten the rules to the drinking game, and even Steve was looking a little rosy in the cheeks.

“I'm guessing we've got approximately ninety minutes before Fury descends and assigns us something,” Natasha says eyeing the wall clock. “And only that long because I'm adding thirty minutes for the time he'll have to spend trekking across Manhattan once he discovers we're not at the Tower.”

“Breakfast?” Clint asks.

“Breakfast,” Natasha confirms.

Fortunately, because most of the members of the household consume an obscene amount of protein, there are enough eggs, bacon rashers and sausages in the refrigerator to fuel a squadron. Clint sets several burners going and starts cooking batches with an enviable precision. 

“Oh my God, I'm keeping you,” Tony says, when he finds the coffee hot and ready for him to inhale. He makes a show of waving off food, but Natasha spots him gnawing on a strip of crispy bacon between cups of espresso.

The others wander in, sleepily following their noses. Clint feels Phil step up behind him and rest his chin on Clint's shoulder. 

“Pancakes?” Phil asks wistfully.

“Gimme thirty seconds and a plate to put them on,” Clint says, turning his head to place a kiss on Phil's cheek.

“Hey, no more feather-tail,” Phil says, hands drifting up to rest below Clint's ribs.

“Nope,” Clint says. “Nat, plate me.”

Clint sets to work layering a stack of pancakes, then passes the plate backwards. Phil takes it, hums with pleasure, then goes to drown it in berries and syrup.

Tony is frowning. “When did that happen?” he asks, pointing between Phil and Clint and back again.

“Long enough ago that it'd just piss you off to find out exactly when,” Natasha says smugly.

“No, really,” Tony presses.

“Winter, 2008, Belize,” Phil says with a smile.

“Shit,” Tony hisses, annoyed. “And how did Link here become some kind of breakfast savant?”

Clint grins and turns off the burners, sliding into a chair beside Phil. “Everyone helped with cooking at the circus. And before SHIELD recruited me, I worked as a short-order cook for a diner.”

“It was a front for organised crime,” Phil says fondly. “I still miss their waffles.”

Phil's phone begins to ring. “Oh, here we go,” he says before pushing the button for speaker phone. “Sir.”

“Where the hell is my team of damn superheroes?” Fury shouts audibly.

“Right now? Eating breakfast,” Phil says.

“What happened to not leaving the goddamn Tower?” Fury froths.

“Actually, you never said the Tower, you said, “Stark's glorified clubhouse” and never specified which one. I have many,” Tony says around his fifth rasher of bacon. “All around the world.”

There's a short, stony silence. 

“We're at the Fifth Avenue mansion, sir,” Steve says.

Tony snorts and mutters something that might be 'pushover'.

“Well, you'd better be ready to suit up at my call, since as of now you're back on active duty,” Fury growls, and hangs up. 

Clint giggles and lets out a short, “Woohoo!”

“Broken arm,” Natasha reminds him, and he droops.

“Eat some pancakes,” Phil says, patting Clint's arm in a conciliatory way.

**Author's Note:**

> The idea of writing gennish dubious consentacles came from something I read about octopuses – that their tentacles aren't actually controlled by their brain, but by a secondary neural control centre. So, I liked the potential of the team having tentacles that had a mind of their own, so to speak. Also, I liked the idea of stepping outside the cliche of octopus or squid tentacles into other species. Mostly, I drew from sea/water creatures. **Bruce** 's hair/head tentacles, I thought of anemones. **Tony** 's curtain-like shoulder fringe, I was thinking of the diaphanous fins and tails of certain kinds of goldfish and fighting fish. Jelly fish often have colourful, ribbon-like tentacles that sting prey, which is what I had in mind with **Natasha**. As I hinted in the story, **Thor** 's mane was based on that of axolotls. There are many species of fish and jelly fish that use light to lure prey or deter predators in the deep sea, which I used for **Steve**. Also, the look of the grey bristle-brush line down his spine, I took from sea urchins. There were only two not clearly sea based. **Phil** 's, I thought of as somewhere between liquid and smoke, which, at a pinch, could resemble a more controlled form of a squid's ink. And besides the fine fringing on **Clint** 's forearms, which I also saw as being anemone-like, Clint's feather-tail isn't aquatic at all, rather, I envisioned it resembling some of the truly fabulous and beautiful feathery antennae you see on moths.


End file.
